THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Segregation— enforced separation of racial/ethnic groups

De jure (by law) segregation – legal segregation through written laws

De facto (by custom) segregation – unwritten segregation through customs, housing patterns, employment, and traditions

Important Vocabulary

Civil disobedience— a strategy for causing social change by means of non-violent resistance

Boycott— an organized agreement not to buy or use a certain product in order to exert pressure for change

Important Vocabulary

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Emmett Till (August 1955)

Start at 11:00 if lacking time

Montgomery Bus Boycott

16-year-old Edwina Johnson & her brother Marshall Arrested for sitting on a bus next to a white man and boy & refusing to move Spent 2 days in jail

Claudette Colvin, teenager A student at Booker T. Washington High Sent to jail for refusing to give up her seat, March 2, 1955 Charged for violating segregation laws, assault, battery,

resisting arrest

--Before Rosa Parks

Mary Louise Smith, 18 Arrested when she refused to move to the back

of the bus After being asked 3 times by the bus driver she

said, “I am not going to move out of my seat. I am not going to move anywhere. I got the privilege to sit here like anybody else does.”

Pleaded guilty; fined $5

TWO MONTHS LATER ON DECEMBER 1, 1955…

Rosa Parks Won’t Give Up Seat—Dec. 1, 1955

“People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired,” Rosa Parks wrote in her autobiography, “but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks Booked for Arrest

When she later explained her action she said, "I thought of Emmett Till

and I just couldn't go back."

• Montgomery blacks decided to not ride the city buses until the segregation law changed

• People walked long distances• Carpools were set up• Boycott lasted 381 days!

Martin Luther King Emerges as Leader• 26 years old• New minister at Dexter Avenue

Baptist church

MLK Encouraged Non-Violent Resistance

Non-Violent Resistance Involved:a) Using moral arguments to change the minds of the oppressorsb) Non-cooperation with unjust lawsc) Marches & demonstrations to cause a creative tension to force action

Inspired by Gandhi

Success!

• Federal court rules law unconstitutional

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) created to continue the fight

26:00-35:00 Boycott[44:30-48:00]48:00--55:00 Boycott

• Bus company lost a great deal of money